Caroline Linden (27 page)

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Authors: What A Woman Needs

BOOK: Caroline Linden
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C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
“What the devil are you doing in my bed, Drake?”
Stuart rolled over and blinked awake. Lord Philip Lindeville stood over him, arms folded over his chest and looking a great deal like his ducal brother, only darker. “Pip,” he said groggily. “Welcome home.”
“And to you! I heard you’d been run out of London by a mob of angry papas.”
“Not quite.” Stuart sat up, scrubbing the sleep from his face. “Ware gave me the key.”
Philip waved one hand. “No matter, you’re welcome to stay. Just not in my bed.” He dropped into a chair and leaned back. “So, who is she?”
“She?” Stuart reached for his robe. The sound of servants bustling about the house filtered in through the open door. Within an hour they would have one of the other bedrooms cleaned and aired for him. Stuart had gotten used to the quiet and privacy, but of course Philip was accustomed to servants.
“The woman who brought you back to town.” Philip smirked. “An heiress? Or a temptress?” He twirled a silk parasol over his head, fluttering his eyelashes. Stuart scowled.
“Where did you get that?”
Philip closed the parasol and held it to his nose. “It was in the hall, under the hat rack. I wonder how a lady could have dropped her parasol there and not missed it. She smells divine, though.”
Stuart grabbed the parasol, resisting the urge to smell it himself. Charlotte hadn’t mentioned missing it, but she must have had one the day they went driving. He tucked the delicate bit of silk and wire under his arm protectively. “Never mind that.”
Philip stood. “By the by, I invite you to stay, but not to move in. Benton is downstairs with four wagons of crates, and I doubt they’ll fit. I brought back a few things myself, and—”
“Benton’s here?” Stuart retrieved clean clothing from the wardrobe.
Philip helpfully kicked a stray boot in his direction. “I sent him to the kitchen. So sorry I can’t be more accommodating, but once my own luggage arrives—”
“You’ve been more than accommodating, Pip.” Stuart ran one hand through his hair in distraction. Four wagons! What in the name of God had Charlotte brought with her from Italy? He remembered the tiger skin, and shuddered. “I’ll send Benton on to Clapham Close with the wagons. We have to unpack everything as soon as possible.”
“At your father’s house? Have you gone mad?” Philip exclaimed. “Are you even allowed to enter?”
“My mother always receives me.” Stuart shrugged. “Many thanks, Philip.”
Philip still stared at him in amazement. “What’s this about?”
Stuart opened his mouth to explain, at least in part, but ended up shaking his head. “Someday I’ll tell you. It’s much too long a tale.”
“Filled with exotic beauties, I trust.” Philip leveled a stern look at him.
Stuart winked. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
 
 
“Lucia!”
Her friend swept into the drawing room with a smile. “
Cara
, how good it is to see you again. But you look so tired and pale!”
Charlotte smiled self-consciously, aware of Mrs. Drake hovering anxiously in the background. “It’s early by town standards.” Lucia gave her a doubtful glance, and Charlotte hurried to present her friend to her hostess. Mrs. Drake welcomed Lucia politely, if nervously, then excused herself.
Lucia watched her leave. “She is not pleased to see me.” She seated herself with a swirl of skirts. “So. What has happened?”
“A great deal since I wrote you last. The investigator has found where Susan’s been staying, although not where she is now.”
“Then you do not need Piero’s collection?” Lucia rolled her eyes. “I knew it would happen this way. I spend three entire days packing what I have just unpacked, ordered about by your Mr. Drake’s man, then fly to London in a very shabby coach, only to find you have no need of my help.”
“No, we still need the crates,” Charlotte assured her. “Stuart is persuaded the kidnapper is watching this house. If he sees the wagons arrive with Piero’s things, he’ll know what he wants is here. Hopefully he will show himself again, in his desperation to get it.”
“Oh?” Lucia smiled slyly. “Stuart?”
Charlotte flushed. “He’s been a great help to me.”
Lucia nodded. “
Buono
. That one knows what a woman needs.” Charlotte glared at her. Lucia shrugged, looking pleased.
“I did not expect you to come yourself.” Charlotte changed the subject. “I thought you were enjoying your stature in Kent.”
Lucia clucked, reaching for her cigarette case. Charlotte couldn’t keep back a sigh at the sight of it. “I have come to help you, of course. Kent had become quite dull. Mr. Whitley decided to return to London, and I saw no other attraction. Not that he retains much attraction; such a mistake I made, allowing you to persuade me not to pursue your Mr. Drake. I knew at once he would be a man of action, not just words.”
“You came with Mr. Whitley, then?”
Lucia nodded, no longer looking pleased. “I have sent him off to make arrangements at a suitable hotel. He is quite good at talking, that one. With luck he will arrange all day until he has no voice left.”
“Oh dear.” Charlotte bit her lip to keep from laughing. Lucia gave a disgusted snort. There was a commotion in the hall before Charlotte could think of anything else to say, and Stuart threw open the door, grinning widely.
“Good morning. I trust you’re ready to unpack.”
Charlotte found herself smiling. It was so hard not to smile back at Stuart. “Good morning. Have you met my friend, Lucia da Ponte? Lucia, Mr. Stuart Drake.”
Lucia got to her feet as Stuart bowed. “Signora.”
“A pleasure,” purred Lucia. “I have not heard enough about you.”
Stuart hesitated, glancing at Charlotte. “I trust we shall remedy that soon enough.” He gestured at the door. “Forgive my ill manners, but I’m certain everyone understands the need for haste. If we unload the crates into the hall, we can bring the things in here. Have you a complete inventory?” Charlotte shook her head. “Then someone should create one, as the things are unpacked.”
“I shall do it,” said Lucia, settling back into her seat. “I don’t wish to touch straw ever again.”
Charlotte followed Stuart into the hall, where two footmen were dragging in the first crate. “Good heavens,” she said, peering out the door and trying to count the crates in the wagon outside. “I’d forgotten how many there were.”
Stuart took her hand, lifting it to his lips for a moment. “Did you sleep well?”
She blushed at his quiet question. “Yes.”
“Any regrets?”
Her blush deepened, but she didn’t look away. “No.”
He smiled. Relieved, she realized; he hadn’t been sure of her reply. He brushed his lips once more over her knuckles before releasing her. “Change your gown; I’m quite fond of this one, and would rather it didn’t get ruined.”
When Charlotte came back downstairs, Stuart was talking with his mother. Amelia was wringing her hands and watching the slow but steady accumulation of wooden crates and trunks in the hall. Charlotte paused. The enormity of what was at stake hit her then. There was nothing else they could do, and yet the fear returned that the thief sought something she didn’t have. All Stuart’s arguments made sense; an Italian who had been searching those crates almost surely wanted something from Italy. But what could it possibly be? The thief had opened every box and not found what he wanted. Was there some small valuable secreted somewhere? How could they hope to find it when he hadn’t been able to?
Then Stuart saw her. For a moment he just stared at her with an almost besotted expression, then blinked away and finished whatever he was saying to his mother before hurrying up the stairs to her. That look, though, steadied her in a way no words could. She didn’t have to face this alone. Someone was with her, and would be until they found Susan.
“I should apologize to your parents,” she whispered to him. “It’s a terrible inconvenience.”
Stuart was already shaking his head. “The kidnapper has been watching this house; we want him to see the wagons arrive, so he knows his prize is at hand. There’s plenty of room here, and Mother understands the important thing is to find your niece.”
Charlotte bit her lip. “I fear we won’t find it.”
He squeezed her hand. “We will.”
“But how? He hasn’t given us a clue, and I can’t think of what he might want. What will we do if we find nothing valuable? Something in one of those crates cost me my niece, and I have no idea what it was.” She closed her eyes, and felt his lips at her temple.
“Something in these crates will return your niece to you,” he corrected gently. “You must think of that.”
Charlotte heaved a sigh and opened her eyes. “Then let’s begin.”
For hours they worked. Vases, statues, sculptures, and paintings emerged from the straw, all recorded by Lucia before Benton placed them in the drawing room. Charlotte examined each piece carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but it all looked the same as it had in Italy. She wished again with all her heart she had left everything behind. Piero’s bequest had been so oddly phrased, entreating her to keep every piece; had he known there was something in it that would cause her such trouble?
By luncheon one wagon was empty and another half empty, and the drawing room was growing crowded. By midafternoon, when the third wagon was emptied and they began unloading the fourth, the drawing room was filled, Lucia was complaining of sore fingers, Charlotte was ready to pitch the lot into the street, and even Stuart’s good humor had faded.
“I heard Marcella Rescati sing,” she told Lucia to break the monotony as she pulled out a heavy urn. Straw showered the floor, which was filthy despite the best efforts of the maids who swept it constantly.
Lucia’s eyebrows flew up as she noted the urn. “Marcella Rescati?
La porcellina?
”
“
La porcellina?
” Amelia asked innocently. She had begun helping, Charlotte suspected, to hasten the process and to protect her drawing room carpet. But then she had begun admiring the pieces, more and more effusively, and was now as engaged as everyone else, even to the straw in her hair.
“The piglet,” Lucia told her. “Because she has the nose of one, and her highest register is a squeal. What did she sing?”
“Susanna, in
Figaro
.”
“Susanna.” Lucia flicked one hand. “I trust she was laughed off the stage.”
“No, she was very well received.” Charlotte handed her urn to Benton and glanced at Stuart. “How did you find the opera the other night?”
He shrugged, prying the lid off another crate with an iron bar. “She sounded perfectly fine to my ears.”
“Pah.” Lucia snorted. “Your English ears.”
“Charlotte’s ears are as English as mine,” he pointed out.
“She has been to Milan and Venice, and heard opera the way it is meant to be sung.”
“The English must take what they can get,” said Charlotte. “There aren’t many true opera singers about.”
“There are not many in the world. It is a gift, to sing opera, and no ordinary piglet can open her mouth and squeal it.” Lucia frowned at the small statue Amelia held up, scribbling a line in her inventory.
“Of course not. But if the closest one can get is a piglet ...” Charlotte shrugged as she wrestled with a statue. It was heavy, and she dragged it forward, kicking the straw away as she did. It caught on the edge of the crate and pitched forward; Charlotte barely caught it before it hit the floor. An edge cut into her scraped, sore hands, and she pushed it back upright with a thump, where it rocked back and forth for a moment.
“
Attento!
” snapped Lucia. “What good is all this work if you break things? That might be the treasure.”
Hot and dusty, her arms and back aching, Charlotte looked at the statue. It was one she particularly disliked, a smirking Mercury whose expression had always made Charlotte’s skin prickle, as if the thing were really watching her. Piero had kept it in his bedchamber, and had actually spoken to it at times. Even now it seemed to be grinning at her, mocking her, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. “This is no treasure, Lucia. It’s a forgery. Just like all these other things.”
“What?” said three voices at once. Even Benton, Stuart’s sphinx-like valet, stopped and stared at her. Charlotte dropped onto the bottom stair, too tired to stand any longer.
“Piero was a forger,” she said wearily. She flung out one arm, encompassing the clutter of statuary and other art crowding the hall. “These are fakes.”
“Are you certain?” demanded Stuart. “How do you know?”
“He told me.” Charlotte leaned against the newel post. It felt terribly good to sit down without holding something. She had had enough of handling Piero’s creations as if they were priceless masterpieces. She had never wanted them in the first place, and each one that appeared only reminded her of those years and months of her life when she had been so lonely. Stuart had named the essence of the matter last night: Piero had used her to fulfill his fantasies. He had supported her lavishly in return, but she had lived a life designed to please him, not herself. Only now, after Stuart had shown her what it was like to be loved just as she was, did she realize how alone she had been in Italy.

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